Slack family papers, 1805-1891 (bulk 1830s-1891).

Abstract: Slack family of Iberville Parish, La., included Eliphalet Slack (1778-1843), who moved to Louisiana from Weston, Mass., in 1829-1830, and Henry Richmond Slack (1835-1890), member of the Yale College class of 1855, sugar planter, and Confederate officer. The chief agricultural pursuit of the Slack family in Louisiana changed from cotton growing to sugar growing around 1834. The collection includes personal and family correspondece, and financial, legal, and military papers, chiefly 1830s-1891. The bulk of the collection consists of correspondence among members of the Slack family in Iberville Parish, La.; Weston, Mass.; and Albany County, N.Y.; and the related Woolfolk family, friends, and associates. Topics include family matters, local events, schooling, and agricultural pursuits. There are also numerous Civil War letters from Henry Richmond Slack, with the 1st Louisiana Cavalry Regiment in Tennessee, Kentucky, and elsewhere, concerning personal, military, and political matters. Financial and legal papers consist chiefly of estate, slave, agricultural, and shipping records of the Slack and related Woolfolk, Cutter, and Benjamin families. Included is an 1867 farming contract between Henry Richmond Slack and some freedmen. Other items document the formation of a “law and order” organization, apparently begun in Iberville Parish in 1878, and a Slack family genealogy compiled by William Samual Slack (1869-1944) in 1930.